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Lions caught from behind, suffer second straight loss

By Rick Spencer, Sun Correspondent

Updated:
10/13/2012 07:12:03 AM EDT

CHELMSFORD -- What started out looking like a record-setting night for Jeff D'Auria and the Chelmsford High football team turned out to be nothing more than a second straight week of frustration for the Lions, as visiting North Andover overcame a 21-7 first-half deficit and upset CHS, 28-21, Friday night at Simonian Alumni Stadium.

"It was a game of big plays, and they just made one more big play than us," said CHS head coach Bruce Rich after watching D'Auria rip off two big touchdown runs (81 and 73 yards) in the first half. "We were able to open some holes early on and D'Auria popped a couple of big ones for us. But we've got to be able to sustain some better drives than we did tonight."

The Lions jumped out to a 14-point first half lead despite not engineering a drive of more than five straight plays in the game's first two quarters. Sophomore quarterback John Campsmith hooked up with senior wideout Gregory Johnson on a 35-yard scoring pass in the first quarter, and D'Auria, the junior tailback who came into the game having scored 11 touchdowns in his team's first five games, lit up the Scarlet Knights for touchdown runs of 81 and 73 yards in the second quarter.

But North Andover drew even at halftime (21-all) with a couple of big plays of their own, both in the final 2:28 of the second quarter.

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First, sophomore wide receiver Robert Shkliew threw a 63-yard touchdown pass to senior wideout Tyler Whitley on an end around option play, then Shkliew caught a 15-yard TD pass from junior quarterback Casey Walsh to tie the score at 21 with just 38 seconds left in the first half.

North Andover scored the only touchdown of the second half when Casey found Shkliew in the end zone again early in the fourth quarter.

But the real key to the game was the fact that the Scarlet Knights took charge of the line of scrimmage in the second half, and shut down the Chelmsford running attack.

"They beat us up front a few times. They had some pretty tough linebackers and they made some plays," Rich said.

After gaining 156 yards on just six carries in the first half, D'Auria was held to 23 yards on 10 carries in the second half.

The back-to-back losses do little to hurt Chelmsford's chance of defending its 2012 MVC Division 1 championship as both Haverhill and North Andover are MVC Division 2 schools.

"On paper this lot doesn't hurt us unless it comes down a tiebreaker," Rich said. "But you'd like to be winning these (cross-over) games. We'll use this and we'll go to work. We're still looking forward to the games against the teams in our division."

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